Breaking news on smart meters in Michigan and around the globe, including the latest DTE and Consumers Energy tactics and how they affect you.
See www.SmartMeterEducationNetwork.com for more information.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Smart water meters are very dangerous. Westland is just beginning to install them. Read our page on smart water meters. Start working with your city council now to stop them or get rid of them or get an opt-out.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Despite what the email says, DTE does in fact know whether you opened it and what you said. How do we know this. We asked the survey company. So much for "privacy"!

What do they ask you about? Nothing really. They tell you you have to accept the AMI (smart) gas meter. They ask you what will get you to accept it.

Here's the survey:Thank you for being a valued DTE Energy customer. Your feedback is very
important to us as we strive to improve your customer experience. We
invite you to provide your opinion about your recent experience with DTE
Energy.

Market Strategies International, an independent public opinion
research company headquartered in Livonia, Michigan, has been contracted
by DTE Energy to administer this survey. This survey is strictly for
research purposes and is not connected with sales in any way. Your
individual responses will remain confidential and will be combined with
the responses of other customers for analysis purposes.

Thank you for your time. Your feedback is key to evaluating and improving DTE Energy's performance.

The survey should take about 10 minutes to complete. Please click the following link to participate in the study:
.....Market Strategies International is committed to protecting your privacy.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Wednesday, March 18,
2015. A three-vehicle convoy from DTE drove to five homes in widely disparate
locations—Ann Arbor, Dexter, and Webster Township—and shut off
their electricity. DTE justified their action by saying that the locking
devices on the meters created a health and safety hazard for the homeowners and
their neighbors.

DTE's action is illegal. It is an illegitimate use of
the public safety exception found in MPSC Rule 460.136. A locked analog meter
is not a public safety hazard. It won’t cause a fire. It won’t irradiate you.
It won’t fill your home with dirty electricity.

Molly
Cleary is a nurse and her husband a
surgeon at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor. They locked their meter with a Tatar Guard because Molly
is very concerned about the potential effects of the meter on their family’s
health.
The Clearys had been away on vacation for the last two weeks. They arrived
home on Sunday to lots of mail and busy work schedules. Molly opened her mail on
Tuesday, and saw the letter from DTE we mentioned above. The next morning, she
and a group of women were at her house for a sewing lesson when the power
suddenly went out. She went outside to find a five-vehicle crew from DTE
cutting off the power to her home at the pole. The crew includes Nikki
Willinger, a DTE Security Supervisor. who accompanies DTE crews when they shut
off power.

Molly
requested that DTE not shut off her power, asked why she couldn’t keep her
analog. They told her they’d lose their jobs if they didn’t cut off her power.
What a bunch of baloney! They all have cell phones and could easily have called Joe
McCormick, head of the AMI Department. Molly called the Smart Meter Education Network, then called Channel 7
news. Her story was shown Wednesday night on the 11 o’clock news. An hour after
Molly called me, another member of the Smart Meter Education Network called to say that DTE had shut
off his power. DTE proceeded to cut power to the other two families.

Molly was proactive! Her story appeared on Channel 7 news. Let’s make the most of it. Get on the phone
to your legislators. Call the news outlets. Ask them to do stories on the other
people who had their power cut. Right now, the public sees just a single
individual. We want all the stories out there, especially the one of the mother
whose son has to take insulin. That insulin has to be kept in the refrigerator.
What’s she supposed to do?

Meanwhile, DTE cut power to another Ann Arbor home. The man's daughter came home at 4 p.m. to find the power out and all of her tropical fish dead. DTE, of course, “remains confident in the safety of its metering equipment” and
does not consider the damage to health, appliances, and wiring caused by smart
meters, nor the fires they have started, to be a health and safety hazard!

Monday, March 2, 2015

We already have one definitive report that DTE does not turn off the radio-transmitter on all its opt-out meters. This meter continued to transmit, even after DTE came out, supposedly turned it off, and put a "Radio-Off" sticker on the meter. The homeowner measured the transmissions with a highly sensitive RF meter, and it was pulsing constantly, just as much as the neighbors' smart meters.We just received a second report via Facebook: "Wanted
to share my most recent experience. As you may remember, DTE replaced
our meter last month against our wishes. I called and arranged for
someone to come out this afternoon to remove the transmitter, which
required me to take time off work. They were to arrive between 12:00 and
4:30. Imagine my surprise when I arrived home at 11:55 to find that
they had already come and gone. Even more concerning, there was a
dusting of snow on the ground, showing footprints that walked into my
backyard, looked into my doorwall and walked back out of my yard...after
putting a "transmitter off" label on my meter. Those footprints did not
stop in front of the meter. They did not even face the meter, so it's
obvious that a label was simply slapped on as he walked past. I am now
concerned that the transmitter was not removed at all. If you got stuck
with a meter, and you requested that the transmitter be removed, PLEASE
take the ENTIRE day off so that you can be there to actually SEE if it
was removed. That was why I took time off from work - to actually watch
them remove the transmitter. Now, I'm in limbo, and it's a horrible
place to be."